Research on educational television shows
Annotated Bibliography Anderson, D. R. (1998). Educational television is not an oxymoron. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 557(1), 24-38. An implicit justification for the Children's Television Act is that curriculum-based television programming, such asSesame Street, is in fact educational. Such programming, however, has been attacked on grounds that it produces shortened attention spans and retards thought and language development. I review these claims in the light of research on children's television viewing. The research provides no support for these attacks and instead reveals both short-and long-term benefits from curriculum-based programming.
Cook, T. D. (1975). " Sesame Street" Revisited. On the basis of a reevaluation of earlier data, doubts are raised about how much economically-disadvantaged children have learned from the educational television series, Sesame Street, and whether the program is widening the gap that separates the academic achievement of disadvantaged pre-schoolers from that of their more affluent counterparts. Included were analyses of the Educational Testing Service research on six-months' viewing of Sesame Street, and studies conducted by Louis Harris, Daniel Yankelovich and others. Indications were that learning increased as a result of viewing when an active encouragement-to-view campaign was conducted, but that gains could not be shown without the campaign; that disadvantaged parents tended to read less to habitual viewers; and that viewing was positively correlated with indices of parental income and education. Acknowledging that the research used was not specifically designed to compare learning gains or possible achievements, the authors recommend that research be commissioned directly to explore those points.
TED talk on Khan Academy http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.
Discussion QuestionDo educational programing shows widen the education gap?
Most Popular Educational Television Shows:
Math
Umizoomi!
Cyberchase
English
Word Girl
Between the Lions
Science
Bill Nye the Science Guy
History
Liberty Kids
Wishbone
Foreign Language
Dora the Explorer
Go, Diego Go
Ni Hao, Kai-lan
General Education
Sesame Street
Zoom
Research on educational television shows
Annotated Bibliography
Anderson, D. R. (1998). Educational television is not an oxymoron. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 557(1), 24-38.
An implicit justification for the Children's Television Act is that curriculum-based television programming, such asSesame Street, is in fact educational. Such programming, however, has been attacked on grounds that it produces shortened attention spans and retards thought and language development. I review these claims in the light of research on children's television viewing. The research provides no support for these attacks and instead reveals both short-and long-term benefits from curriculum-based programming.
Cook, T. D. (1975). " Sesame Street" Revisited.
On the basis of a reevaluation of earlier data, doubts are raised about how much economically-disadvantaged children have learned from the educational television series, Sesame Street, and whether the program is widening the gap that separates the academic achievement of disadvantaged pre-schoolers from that of their more affluent counterparts. Included were analyses of the Educational Testing Service research on six-months' viewing of Sesame Street, and studies conducted by Louis Harris, Daniel Yankelovich and others. Indications were that learning increased as a result of viewing when an active encouragement-to-view campaign was conducted, but that gains could not be shown without the campaign; that disadvantaged parents tended to read less to habitual viewers; and that viewing was positively correlated with indices of parental income and education. Acknowledging that the research used was not specifically designed to compare learning gains or possible achievements, the authors recommend that research be commissioned directly to explore those points.
TED talk on Khan Academy
http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.
Discussion QuestionDo educational programing shows widen the education gap?